First Shoot with Actors or The Importance of Story Boards

by EvanJPalmer

On Saturday we shot our first short with people who aren’t normally involved.

We had the regulars, plus two actors I met at improv classes, and an extra cameraman. We also shot at a friend’s house, so we had some spectators too – people who had inconvenienced themselves by lending us their house as a location.

Because we had these extra stakeholders, I was super conscience of time.

There was one glaring mistake that came to light that day – I hadn’t planned my shots.

We had a solid script.
We had rehearsed.
We had all the props.
We had a charged camera
We had laptop for reviewing
We had lights
Audio was sorted

But we really should have story boarded storyboards, for two reasons:

Firstly to make sure we didn’t miss any shots. I haven’t finished editing yet, but I have a feeling that I’ve missed a few shots – mostly around the bit where I’m acting, so at least I can reshoot myself if I need, but with story boards, this wouldn’t be a problem,

Secondly so we could tell everyone how much longer was left without guessing. After a few hours of shooting people were getting bored and hungry. It was hard for me to guess how long we had left because I couldnt’ say, well, we’ve done about 50% of the shots. As a result, we rushed scenes towards the end, and they didn’t turn out as well as they could have.